Examples of this type of product are confections e.g. ice cream or lollies or snacks made from a pourable, liquid or semi-liquid edible product which has been solidified. The product is held on a stick when being consumed.
The conventional way for manufacturing such products is by filling a rigid, cooled metallic mold with the pourable product, solidifying the product sufficiently so that when a stick is inserted, it is hard enough to hold it. The metallic mold is then further cooled to solidify the product further. For releasing the product from the mold, it is then heated for a short period in order to release the solidified product therefrom. The product on the stick is subsequently packed.
An alternative way of providing a wrapped edible product on a stick is disclosed in PCT/EP 94/02493. This patent application describes a packing method wherein a pouch having a tubular portion is formed, a stick is inserted into the tubular form where it extends into the pouch. The pouch is filled with a product while the stick is in the package and subsequently sealed off and finally solidified.
Although this method provides an in-pack filling of the product, it has certain drawbacks such as the necessity of tightly fitting the package around the stick for low viscosity products, to avoid the stick being embedded in the product. This requires an alteration of the stick. It may e.g. be provided with a projection around which the package can be tightly fitted. For high viscosity products the stick may obstruct a regular flow. Furthermore, in prior art in-pack filling, the stick is fully encircled in packing material in the tubular portion.
Another in-pack filled frozen confection package is described in GB 835,066. In this document there is described a package like the one disclosed in PCT/EP 94/02493 however it is only a 2-dimensional pack.